Ahem, moving on to your final point; the idea of developing an all-new setting as we contribute to it seems a good one, but will we develop from a complete tabula rasa or a generally agreed-upon basic concept?(for example perhaps an element of your Massively Inclusive BH/HtbD/Ww Multiverse - such as D'Henna or a Firefly-style crew of misfits or the local version of Bond - making the activity a sort of writers version of an Art Jam).

Founder of H.E.R.O.I.C, Complimenter-in-Chief, Co-Arch Henchman to the Grin, Servant of the Hoff!

I think a loosely agreed upon setting with major thematic elements defined would work best. Then let everybody fill in the gaps. Stuff like technology level, major cosmic elements, prevalence of magic, etc.

Yes, I also want to thank Charles for setting the stage-and then letting all of us help write a long-running play.

I haven't been terribly active of late, as my time has been taken up by other matters. But perhaps I will find time to help close out the thread in the next week or so, with those ideas about a "possible future timeline" of HED.

As far as building a new setting goes, I do think it falls to Charles to set the axioms of the world, so the rest of us can fell in the black spaces.

Superheroes existed during the Golden Age and Silver Age respectively but a Crisis-level event resulted in the deaths of virtually 90% of them during the short Bronze Age during the 90s. A recent spurge of super-crimes and villains have resulted in a brave few souls working to restore the legacy of heroes worldwide. Because there's no "rules" for superheroes or justice League, everyone is pretty much making up their own codes as they go along.

2. Courage and Fear

Magic and the supernatural has a decidedly Lovecraftian/Hellraiser/Constantine-esque bent with the world afflicted with all manner of terrible ickiness. However, a special US department has discovered a way to purify these unnatural powers and has spread them across the world to create honest to God superheroes.Surely this can't possibly backfire!

3. New World Order

An alternate history, The Proconsul seized control over the United States and parts of Europe after the superheroes failed drastically and a city was destroyed by supervillains. Instituting a draconian law which chipped Metamen and ruled with a tyrannical fist, you'd think this would be one fo those stories where they work to overthrow him.

No, he's disappeared and the governments are currently working to restore democracy after his ten year reign. Do the new heroes stand for the new government, overthrow it, or work to establish their own new way of doing things?

4. Singularity

Half the world has superpowers of one sort or another and getting them is pretty damn easy. Being a superhero thus requires a lot more than a set of abilities, it requires the PCs to be able to do something spectacular or be THAT talented. Unfortunately, the abudnance of powers in the world also means things are readying to fall into chaos.

Infinite Dreams: There is more then one reality out there. Most are total chaos with no rules whatsoever but precious few have a some coherence. Most people can catch glimpses of these alternate realities, those are dreams. Some have found ways to access these alternate realities, some places these realities bleed into the "normal" one. This is where the mythology of the world comes from. Gods and heroes were just people who found out how to access these other realities where the rules are different and bring them to this reality. The ancients call it magic, modern scientists call it quantum theory. Nevertheless, through training, natural ability, or accident a lot more people are able to access the power of these other dimensions.

2012: The End Times: The Mayans were right, 2012 was the end of the world as we know it. The Doomsday sayers were wrong in that it would be the apocalypse. Something happened when the clock hit midnight on Jan 1, 2012. People began discovering that they had powers, formerly normal people became super geniuses, people began appearing who claimed to be the gods and heroes of old. The press dubbed this new time as "The New Age of Mythology".

I think Infinite Dreams could be a tack-on to the main story as part of the cosmology.

Instead of alien invasions, you could have extra-dimensional ones. You could do a lot with this world being aware of alternate realities and charting them while being annoyingly at the crossroads for a lot of different dimensions.

Say, Earth-272 attacks with its horde of Aztec themed heroes and plans to sacrifice all of the locals to convert them to the "true" gods.

That and it explains things like "where does the fire come from for that fireball?" and "where does the extra mass come from when Bruce Banner hulks out?" the heroes and villains are just bringing it in from another reality without knowing it.

It would also explain that if there all these different gods, why don't they interact with each other? The Norse are stuck in Asgard, the Greeks in Mt. Olympus, etc.

Actually, the Edison Rex comic is pretty cool, even if the concept "cheats" a bit in that the Lex Luthor pastiche is not really evil (just arrogant and contemptuous of most laws and rules) and the Superman analogue Valiant was not quite what he seemed.

Kudos to Crinos for calling this out-and the temporary resurrection of the HED thread.